Back on the ICW, March 28, 2014

We have not done a very good job of keeping up our blog. There are several reasons. We have left the islands and we are on our way home. Although this is still a part of the Glory Days voyage, it has not seemed all that exciting or interesting (like the rest of our trip, some would say). We are covering the same waters that we travelled on the way down and not taking as many pictures.




We left Grand Cay in the Bahamas on March 14th and sailed northwest in the Gulf Stream, arriving at the Florida coast about 24 hours later. We were disappointed that the winds were lighter than forecasted, which meant we motored a lot of the way, but it was a good safe crossing.

We came in at the Ponce Inlet, south of Daytona and entered the Intracoastal Waterway.

After one night anchored in Daytona, we pushed on to St. Augustine, where we sat out some rainy, cool weather for three nights.



After St. Augustine, we bundled up for an all day motor to Fernandina Beach. Here we stayed two nights and enjoyed a day with our Michigan friends, Craig and Cindy. They have a Tartan called Windigo and were getting away from the Michigan winter for a couple of months in Florida.

After carefully watching the forecast, we decided we had a great opportunity to "go outside," and sail up the Georgia coast and not motor up the ICW. The Georgia section of the ICW winds and twists through marshland. There are many shallow spots and severe tidal currents. We (Dan especially) wanted to avoid it if at all possible.



We left Fernandina, went out into the Atlantic and 18 uneventful hours later, we arrived in Beaufort, South Carolina. This trip that would have taken three days in the ICW. We really like Beaufort and after walking around the town a bit, we decided to move to a quiet anchorage north of town.

We now find ourselves playing a "timing game," of when to move and when to sit. We have a tentative goal of reaching Michigan by Memorial Day, but we know if we go too far too fast, we will run into colder weather. A very smart man once told Dan, "the most dangerous thing on a boat is a calendar."




On days like this, we sit.




After three nights in Georgetown, SC, waiting for the weather to warm up, we continued to a beautiful spot to anchor for the night in the Waccamaw River.




Now we are at a dock in Myrtle Beech, where we had an opportunity to connect with our friends, Lee and Mary Pat.

We sat at the bar at Dirty Don's Oyster Bar and watched Michigan and Michigan State advance to the Elite Eight in the NCAA basketball tournament. Now we will stay here until after the games on Sunday.

Go Blue! Go Green!

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Location:North Myrtle Beach, SC

Our Last Stop in the Bahamas was Grand, March 13, 2014

We are sitting at a dock at Grand Cay watching the weather and expecting to leave in the morning to cross to Florida. We are hoping to take advantage of the north flow of the Gulf Stream and sail all the way to Ponce Inlet, near Daytona Beach. This will be approximately 30 hours.




In the mean time, we have thoroughly enjoyed walking around Grand Cay. This is another cay that is "off the beaten path" for cruising boats. We have noticed that places that don't see a huge number of boats are the most welcoming. Virtually everyone we encountered during our two days here greeted us with a smile and said, "hello."

We ate take-away food at the places the locals eat and had opportunities to engage in real conversation.


This community survives by fishing and there are small boats everywhere. This little boy had been out with his dad.


Sister was on shore to pull them in and politely refused Dan's offer to help.


These guys were shooting hoops in the school yard and stopped long enough to get their picture taken.



We wandered through the well maintained cemetery.




We encountered this little cutie being pushed in a stroller by her big sister.




This is the view of one of the two streets that run the length of the island.





As we prepare to say goodbye to the Bahamas, we are reflecting on our time here and treasuring our last day at this Grand Cay.


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Location:Grand Cay, Bahamas

Homeward Bound

After Rock Sound, we spent a couple of nights at our old stomping ground, Hatchet Bay. This was one of Dan's favorite fishing spots from last year. He went out our first day there and came back pretty quickly with this guy.






The second night there we had a delicious meal of stone crabs that we purchased from a fisherman at the docks. We decided to move quickly through Eleuthera this year in order to make it to a songwriters festival in Hope Town.




We spent one night at Spanish Wells. This is the view from our anchorage.
We then headed to Hope Town where we met up with our Canadian friends, George and Jackie on Heritage and Guy and Louise on Miss Ellie.





We really enjoyed the performers at the Patrick Davis Hope Town Songwriters Festival. They are a talented bunch who have written hit songs for established country artists, but are also good singers and musicians in their own right. A couple of our favorites were Casey James, who had been on American Idol, and Jessie Rice, who cowrote the song "Cruise" which was a big hit by Florida Georgia Line. It was a fun couple of nights listening to good music in a beautiful setting.

After a relaxing week in Hope Town, we anchored at Matt Lowes Cay for a night. In the morning, we snorkeled on Mermaid Reef outside of Marsh Harbor. There Dan learned that feeding Cheerios to the fish is best left for the end of your snorkel. He couldn't shake a huge school of fish that followed him around long after the food was gone.





We then moved on to Man O War. This is a pretty little town known for boat building. It is also the only dry community we have encountered in the Bahamas.




This is one of several churches we saw in Man O War.



We next spent a few nights at Treasure Cay, waiting out a big blow. There is a nice marina with good provisioning available. We had been hearing about the beautiful beach here from other cruisers. It was long and pretty, but we can't say it was better than many others we have seen in the Bahamas. There are just a lot of spectacular beaches here.




After leaving Treasure Cay, we stopped at the uninhabited Powell Cay. We took a long walk on the ocean side and found a lot of shells and a couple more sea beans.




We then spent a night at Allans-Pensacola, where we met up with Greg from Rainbeau, whom we had first met in St. Augustine. He is looking to cross back to the US the same time we are, so we may have a buddy boat for that crossing. He understands though that we sail fast. When you have a 30 hour crossing ahead of you, you don't want to slow down for another boat. At least that is our attitude, hence our previous solo crossings. We might not be the best people to buddy boat with, but are probably better than nothing for a solo sailor.

We are currently at Fox Town, our next to last anchorage before crossing.
This is a typical Bahamian village, not touristy like some of our recent stops in the Abacos. We went into town and had a delicious lunch of grilled hogfish and cracked conch. We watched some black tipped sharks circling in the harbor near a fish cleaning station and we talked to some friendly locals. These last few nights have been the kind of experience we most enjoy in the Bahamas: the remote, isolated anchorages and the small communities where there the local residents dramatically outnumber the boaters. These will be the places we will look back on most fondly when we are back home.

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Location:The Abacos